Irene O'Donnell

Irene O'Donnell (1876-) was a leader of the pro-treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War.

Biography
Irene O'Donnell was born in 1876, and she came from an Irish family which lived in Birmingham, England. Her disabled son Sean went to the Cherrywood Road School in Harborne, where she was involved with raising funds for the IRA from among the Irish diaspora community. During the Irish Civil War, she was a member of the pro-treaty faction, supporting peace with the United Kingdom. In 1921, she and Donal Henry arranged the bombing of The Garrison Pub in Birmingham to force Peaky Blinders leader Tommy Shelby to come to them and partner with them and British Irish Desk supervisor Chester Campbell to assassinate Field Marshal Henry Russell, as they wanted it to look like a gang-related and not a political murder. O'Donnell was impressed by Shelby's intelligence and his researching of his enemies, although she disliked the fact that he was a criminal.